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A Peek of Wonderfulness
Monday, March 3, 2008
Imagine my surprise when I opened the blinds this morning and saw this:
About an hour later my daughter awoke and was equally surprised and incredibly excited! Looking at the weather widget on my iGoogle page, though, I know we shouldn't get too excited as snow is predicted all week long. But wow! To see grass in our backyard is truly wonderful. As we said this morning, "This means that Spring isn't TOOOO far away!"
And, of course, the very notion that Spring will be here eventually, spurned me on to go remind myself what I'll need to do to my lavender plants. I had read late last fall to just leave them as-is and deal with them in the Spring.
Here's what I found (again) from various sources:
- Lavender (Lavandula) Many areas have a hard time over-wintering lavender. The problem is more often moisture than cold, but cold is a factor. Don’t prune lavender late in the season, as new growth is extremely cold sensitive. Wait until new growth appears in the spring before removing winter die back. (USDA Zones 5 - 9)
- Spring pruning encourages thicker growth and more flower production so do trim the plant in the early spring just when the buds start to swell on the stems.
So we'll see. Last year was the first time I ever grew lavender, and frankly, I've no idea what kind of lavender planted. (Whatever the local Home Depot was selling that day!) We'll be moving from here in another 1.5 years or so.... so getting 'attached' to my plants isn't something I can afford to do anyway. If they survived the winter and thrive this year, great, if not... well, it will have been a learning experience.
Do you know what growing zone you live in? You can zoom in on you area and find out by clicking the image below.
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6° Tomorrow and I'm Thinking About Gardening
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
 My trusty iGoogle homepage's weather widget says it is going to be a frigid 6° tomorrow (not including wind chill, and that's windchill off of Lake Michigan, mind you!) You'd think that would be enough to keep us home, right?? Well not this homeschooling family! Oh no! We're heading to an indoor water park tomorrow with our field trip homeschool group! Can you imagine!?? First, I've never been to an indoor water park in my life! Secondly, the last water park we went to was in Hawaii, and I need to let go of those expectations because nothing will live up to those experiences!LOL
I saw that Monica, over at The Homespun Heart ,started seedlings off at her house in South Carolina. Wow, I'm jealous, I admit it.
But it got me to wondering when we should start seedlings indoors here, too. I pulled out my gardening notebook (a composition notebook that I do need to decorate... mental note) and see that we planted last year's garden on May 6th. May 17th we had a frost so DH and I covered the plants with a sheet. (If memory serves I think we had another slight frost, but I don't see that I wrote that in the notebook.)
 Last year's garden.
That perked me up a bit, knowing it's only another two-ish months before I can really start thinking about ground planting! WOOHOO! I probably could read up a bit and see what garden specimens would even be okay planting earlier than that.
The pesky squirrels will be our biggest foe, at least until the plants are well established. Thankfully our chicken-wire fencing and pot covers worked like a charm.
I've not yet decided WHAT I actually want to plant this year. Our tomatoes were a royal pain last summer. Just too many, too big, too unruly ( even caged up.) Well, the green zebras were *okay* and the cherry tomatoes were a delight. I know we'll plant the cherry tomatoes-- maybe I'll look for a smaller variety of other tomatoes as the big red, yellow, and pinks were TOO BIG, and the green zebras weren't as big a hit with the family as I'd hope.
Radishes-- definitely will plant some of those, but on a smaller scale, and more regularly.
We absolutely LOVED the broccoli plants last year. I had only planted three and by the end of the season wished I had planted more. However, DH and I have been talking about the broccoli and are still undecided about it. It requires quite a bit of space and since we're working in VERY limited space (only that which the Navy used to have planted with crappy bushes and weeds, before DH cleared it) we have to really be certain what we want in the ground.
DH has requested some hot peppers, while I am actually waffling about (green) peppers completely. If I opt to plant peppers I might do them in containers. I just don't know yet.
Cauliflower is out. Our four plants last year never took off right, ended up in a total failure. Too much work for this small plot of land.
Carrots and lettuces I'll definitely do again. Not so much on the beans, though. I just don't have enough space to make bean harvesting worth the time. I can't grow enough beans at any particular time to make a harvest even big enough for one meal. Maybe some day in the future, in a future home.
What really has me excited though is the prospect of FLOWERS!!! I truly adored the result of the cheapo packet of seeds that bloomed into wonderful wildflowers. I'd like to get MORE flowers out this year and in more places. The peonies didn't take off at all so those will be dug up and replaced, I'm thinking, with easier/quicker flowers. The lavender, on the other hand, was super (and is over-wintering right now quite nicely.) I'll definitely plant morning glories again (and maybe even more of them.) Last year, the ones in the pot at the bird feeder pole were slow starting but once they started climbing worked wonderfully at keep them squirrels away from the feeders. They just got too annoyed trying to make their way up the entangled pole. LOL (mental note-- I do want to buy a squirrel baffle or two this year!)
DD enjoyed her special pot of flowers so I'll let her pick something new this year as well as start some inside, too.
A lot more blogging about gardening, I'm sure, is to come. It's nice to look forward to the lovely spring & summer weather. I've seen way too much snow lately and I'm itching for a change. I did find some nice maps to add to my gardening notebook. Check them out and see where your location falls. Have you started thinking about this year's vegetable and/or flower garden? What do you plan to plant? Drop me a comment and let me know. If you have blog entries (especially with PHOTOS) about your gardening experiences, please leave a link, too!
P.S. (mental note-- to buy a new patio umbrella, since the one we got from my step-dad last year completely broke in half during a big storm. *sigh*)
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A Little Visitor
Monday, August 27, 2007
Just three days ago DH spotted a bunny in our yard. Today I captured it on film!
 Here it is on our patio, under the furniture.
 I spy?!
Racing off towards the garden....errr, umm, around the garden!
In the very back of the photo you can just barely spot a Mourning Dove
settled in the grass around the planter with the morning glories and bird feeders. |
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Before and after
Monday, August 27, 2007
I forgot to post these earlier this month. Just showing you how important it is to keep up on your yard work. LOL
 Before
 After
**That is lavender and peony plants (2 of each) growing inside the fencing. **
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Green Zebras & More!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Here on the last day of July, I thought I'd go out this morning and take a few photos of our garden. It has been a tremendous joy to work the garden as well as a wonderful thing to have it provide the little morsels it has already. We've enjoyed cherry tomatoes in large abundance, some broccoli, carrots, a cucumber... so far. It is nice to know it is still going strong.
Here's a glimpse of the Green Zebras (Lycopersicon esculentum) that are soon to be enjoyed....
And here's our second cucumber growing on the vine! (This is SUPER exciting, as the cucumber plants look rather sickly. But, I held out a bit of hope, grabbed a paint brush and pollinated them by hand. This is the result... though there is also a third one trying its hardest to mature as well!) This looks much larger in the photo than it really is. LOL
Our poor, lil' ol' bean pot... not sure what to say about that. It hasn't produced the bountiful pickin's that I'd like for it too. The plants haven't grown very tall at all and certain haven't needed the bean tepee we made. Here's a shot of a soon-to-be-bean...
After our initial harvest of the heads of broccoli from our three plants, I've continually been picking off these side shoots! These are fabulous. Almost daily I can walk out before lunch, pick a few and serve them right up with some ranch dressing on my daughter's lunch plate! Definitely delightful!
I couldn't pass up another photo opp for my glorious cherry tomatoes! Just delicious and cute!
And here's more from my beloved container of wildflowers. This is the California Poppy ( Eschscholzia californica.) If you look CLOSELY you can see the little "friend" that is clinging to the stem of a deadheaded crimson clover. See him? Just a little grasshopper of some kind. Funny, because I didn't even see it there while taking the photo. It wasn't until I was adjusting file size and thinking about cropping the photo closer did I take notice. (Which is why I didn't crop the photo.)
Here's another wildflower from the same container. I've yet to identify it exactly.
Just when I thought the strawberry plant was done, look what I found tucked away inside...
There is a whole mess of these guys, just waiting to turn ripe! We can't wait until I start seeing RED!!
These beauties just started blooming TODAY!!! I have to admit, I had become quite impatient with the whole pot of Morning Glories. The greenery is winding around the bird feeder pole nicely but I wanted FLOWERS! Well, finally they've begun! Gorgeous!!
ANd, last but not least here is a photo of the garden today. (Bird feeder/morning glories, petunias, peonies & lavender not shown.)
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Wildflower: Cow Cockle & Seed collecting
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Earlier this year I mentioned that I planted a big container bowl full of wildflowers. Just a packet of Wal-mart's "WILDFLOWER- bird & butterfly mixture," nothing fancy. But they've been blooming just wonderful and nicely staggered in blossoming! One of my favorites and earliest to blossom was the COW COCKLE (aka; cow-herb, china cockle.)
Just a few days ago a grey squirrel, not that pesky black squirrel (recently dubbed "HOBO" by a neighbor girl,) was on the patio in the early morning and surprised me when it snatched a dead flower and ate it! Well of course I knew it was eating the seeds, so I got thinking that I ought to go collect some before they all get eaten! Although I've read the plant and seeds are poisonous to livestock, the squirrel didn't seem to mind them, seemed to enjoy them, and has returned a number of times. It will be interesting and fun to see what/if any of the seeds collected will sprout next year!
Yes, these are really weeds, but the flowers are so pretty!
So here's what the flowers look like:
And the dried up, ol' flowers look like this:
And here is a picture of mature seeds (black are mature, brown/reddish are immature):
(Sorry about the photo quality of this one.
I blew it out with my flash on the white paper towel & counter top.)
To read more about this wildflower you can visit this page out of Saskatchewan.
Whether flower or vegetables, consider collecting seeds this year to share with friends and/or use next year! You can store your various types of seeds in packets you make yourself! Here are a few links for free, printable seed packets:
Alenka's Printables
All Free Printables
Blossom Swap
eIntown (be sure to check out the FAIRY PACKETS HERE!)
I'm sure the internet offers many more, these are just ones I found quickly.
For more information about seed collecting click on over to Blossom Swap's Seed Saving page. They also have an informative page with tips and etiquette for swapping seeds.
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Guess what's coming in!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Yeah, they're coming in alright! Slow and steady I guess.
I also have spotted a second green pepper as well as tomatoes forming on the green zebra plant! woohoo! Will need to thin out the newest sprouts of carrots soon. Cherry tomatoes are driving me crazy. There are so many GREEN ones on the plant, we've already eaten the 6-7 red ones that came, now just waiting for the greenies to turn red!!! Oh, picked our first cuke yesterday, too! Haven't eaten it yet though. Hmmmm, that sounds like a yummy evening snack: cucumber and some cream cheese! WOOHOO!
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